• Frank [he/him, he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    I had a dream where I went back in time to the Soviet Union and was like "You guys you need to massively support cultural freedom because the West is coming for you, and you can probably stop it if you, like, give official sanction and tolerance to punk bans and discotheques and generally let the kids be wild and experimental so they can build their own cool culture instead of looking to the west for cool culture. Like seriously reverse engineer some Stratocasters and trick the kids into holding a giant Soviet Punk battle of the bands or something.

    • thethirdgracchi [he/him, they/them]
      ·
      edit-2
      2 years ago

      Arno Schmidt, one of my favorite authors, basically said exactly this in the 50's. He was like "look communists, the avant garde in the West will support you forever if you just allow artistic freedom. The biggest East Germany stans will be the Western avant garde if you just do that. Your societies will be more vibrant and unstoppable if you just let the artists do crazy shit."